Desormeaux Meats likes to be creative. As a result, they are offering their customers beef bacon, thinly sliced strips of beef that cooks like bacon but tastes like beef. Courtesy Photo

CRYSLER – Desormeaux Meats in Crysler, Ontario likes to make its customers feel at home with its delicious and innovative products seasoned with a sense of humour.

The local meat processor uses its sign as an opportunity to spread some fun around the community.

Amy Grotenhuis, who works at Desormeaux with owner Brian Vandenberg said, “It might seem silly, but we love to put punny sayings on our sign like “More Than Meats the Eye” and “We love to meat you” and “Hello, is it meat you’re looking for”.

She said they also have 17 plus varieties of in-house sausages that people drive hours to come and have.

They have a slogan, which is “The meat you want from the farmer we know”.

“Our creativity is just beginning, with more ideas brewing as we speak,” she said.

Always searching for ways to offer a different kind of product, they have come up with a novel way to promote their latest product. It is called beef bacon from beef, and butt bacon which comes from a pork shoulder.

“It definitely would be a good replacement for bacon,” said Grotenhuis adding, “It is a different way to eat beef.  It spices it up for people and you can pan fry it or microwave it.”

Desormeaux send their meat out to Lavergne Western Beef to be smoked. When it returns it is sliced into thin strips just like bacon.

“We use the belly part of the beef. For the beef bacon and a pork shoulder for the butt bacon,” said Grotenhuis.

“We try to get some nice lean strips, and it has a nice fat marbling along the edge.”

Grotenhuis said it tastes like beef.

“A grilled cheese and beef bacon sandwich would probably be the best thing you will ever eat,” suggested Grotenhuis. “That sounds amazing,” she said.

“We like to be creative here. We like to think outside of the box. We have 17 varieties of sausages.”

The beef bacon is packaged exactly the same way as regular bacon.

Desormeaux Meats has endless cuts of pork, beef and chicken as well as a large variety of sausages. They have family packages you can purchase as well as pet food products like dog bones, pig’s ears and suet. Desormeaux Meats can be reached by email at: desormeauxmeats@gmail.com or by phone at (613) 987-2148. They have a webpage  https://desormeauxmeats.com/ and can be found in Crysler at 1 Queen St..

They are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.